George Santos was recently elected to represent New York’s 3rd congressional district. He had impressed the voters by telling them he held degrees from two colleges and had worked for two firms on Wall Street as a financier and investor. He had founded an animal charity which he ran for five years and his family owned thirteen rental properties in New York. He had described himself as openly gay and ‘a proud American Jew’, his mother’s parents being Jews who had fled the holocaust.
It’s well-known that you have to be a lying bastard to be a successful politician but this only works when your lies remain unchallenged. It turns out that he didn’t go to college, he never worked on Wall Street, he didn’t pass on money raised to help homeless animals, his family doesn’t own any rental properties and none of his mother’s ancestors are Jewish. To confuse matters further, it’s been revealed that he was married (to a woman) in 2012 and was divorced in 2019. His Democratic opponent in the election had been openly gay so perhaps he decided it would be a good idea to split the gay vote.
When confronted with these discrepancies, Santos admitted to ’embellishing’ his academic and career qualifications, and although raised as a Catholic, he said he felt himself to be part of the Jewish community. “I never claimed to be Jewish” he said, “I meant to say I felt Jew-Ish”. No really, I’m not making this up, that’s what he said.
The question to be asked is, why did the senior House Republican leaders not check his background during the selection process? A couple of phone calls would have been sufficient to expose him. Another question is, will he still be allowed to take his seat in congress? One thing in his favour is that he has expressed his support for Kevin McCarthy who is desperate to be elected Speaker of the House. McCarthy is not known for his integrity and so far has maintained a deafening silence on the subject.
Nominated by: Allan
(More info here – Day Admin BBC News Link)
